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Project Level Analyses

Chapter 5. Application of the Port VSP Profiles in MOVES Project Level Analyses

This chapter describes how the VSP profiles developed for ports, as documented in Chapter II, could by applied by an analyst to estimate project-level emissions for a port facility.

In applying the operating mode profiles, described in Chapter II, to estimate emissions from truck trips at ports or intermodal facilities, the analyst should determine which of the three port link types modeled in the microsimulation modeling are applicable to their situation, make an estimate of the truck demand per hour, and select the corresponding operating mode profile or profiles. Note that the INSIDE GATE link is relevant only for uninterrupted travel (no stops) once trucks have entered the port facility. When accounting for emissions that occur during the truck trip to or from the facility that occur outside the port and beyond the signalized arterial leading to the facility, typical driving cycles that would normally occur on the types of roadways traveled would be appropriate, so the MOVES default driving cycles could be used to capture that portion of the trip emissions. When focusing on the portion of the trip specific to the port or intermodal facility, the user would need to set up a MOVES project level run where these operating mode distributions would be included as inputs.

The steps for applying these profiles to another port or intermodal facility are described below:

1. Estimate number of trucks per hour at the port gate. This can be done by dividing the estimate of the number of trucks entering the port gate per day per gate. Thus, if the port has 2,000 trucks entering per day and four gates, and operates from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., an average of 50 trucks would enter per hour per gate.
2. Select the Port Gate Operating Mode Distribution file with the closest number of trucks per hour. In this case, the appropriate file for 50 trucks per hour would be GATE_50TRUCKS_HR. The file for 60 trucks per hour should be used in any cases where the truck volume per hour entering each gate is greater than 60.
3. Set up two MOVES project-level runs one using the operating mode distribution associated with the links with the intersection and approach to the port gate, as selected in Step 2, and one with the operation mode distribution inside the port gate (the ON_PORT_PROPERTY file).
4. Develop other necessary MOVES project level files:
   1. Age Distribution file this can be developed based on similar survey information as discussed above for the New York ports, or if data are unavailable, the New York port age distribution can be used, adjusted as necessary to the calendar year being modeled.
   2. Links the user needs to define individual roadway links. The required user data are port county/zone (Federal information processing standard county code of the port location), the road types at the port (restricted/unrestricted rural/urban), each link's length and volume (units of vehicles per hour), and the average speed for each link. If using the provided operating mode distribution files, the links are as defined in the section above titled "Output Files," so link volumes would be determined by the average hourly volume of trucks, and the link length should match the appropriate actual port link (e.g., if the average trip length within the port is 2 miles, this would be entered for the ON PORT PROPERTY link [link ID 30 in the ON_PORT_PROPERTY file]).
   3. Link Source Type similarly, the user needs to provide the fraction of each link's traffic volume that is driven by each source type.
   4. Off network Link file this file needs to be populated with the MOVES source types being considered in the analysis to account for project emissions from idling and starts. The required user data are the vehicle population, the start fraction (the fraction of this population that has a start operation in the given hour), extended idle fraction, and parked vehicle fraction.
   5. Additional data files are needed for meteorology and fuel parameters, but these can be populated with the MOVES default for the county in which the project is located.
5. Run MOVES, selecting the pollutants, vehicles, and output of interest. Since the MOVES project level runs only include one hour of activity, the results should be scaled to the time period of interest (e.g., if the port operates for 10 hours per day, the hourly results would be multiplied by 10 to get daily results.